Peter Tasi of Tasi Design

An example of signage for one of our grantees

Partner Profile: Peter Tasi

Peter Tasi is a prolific designer who has composed signage for many of our garden sites. He designs and creates the signs and identifies where they should be placed in order to best inform visitors.

My first introduction to TKF Sacred Places Program was the installation of their classic bench and memory book at the Annapolis Maritime Museum. During my tenure there as design director I would often take my notes and sketches to that bench for a temporary escape from work. Back Creek, Severn River and the Chesapeake Bay would merge into one ever changing waterscape and I would leave with a refreshed outlook.

I had always lived near the water and sought the beauty of a shoreline whenever I could. The amazing view, from my childhood bedroom window was a wide panorama of Cleveland's Lake Erie waterfront. It was a jumble of shipyards, giant cranes unloading ore, steam locomotives hauling freight and huge storage tanks flanking the Cuyahoga River. One night I was terrified as the river caught fire from its volatile pollutants. That year the lake was closed to swimming and fishing.

Fast forward into my teenage years; my family moved to Connecticut. Long Island Sound renewed my love of water. Later on I built and raced my first sailboat there. I moved to Brooklyn to study design at Pratt Institute. I marveled at the New York waterfront where powerful tugs and majestic ocean liners entered the Hudson River. Manhattan became my home during my first year of professional work, and then the military service called. Assigne to Alaska, I explored this wild and wonderful territory and its native peoples.

Returning to my design work, I moved to Washington, DC and then to Alexandria where our home overlooked the Potomac River. My wife Ann introduced me to Annapolis, where we have lived for the past 40 years. The Chesapeake was her childhood playground and it became mine and our children's as well.

My professional work had taken me abroad to design exhibitions for international fairs. I created commerical and museum exhibits along the East Coast and graphics for government, corporate and civic projects. When TKF asked me to collaborate with them in their Sacred Places Program, I felt this was a unique opportunity to work alongside their grantees and produce interpretive graphics for diverse sites, each with a special purpose and message.